Very Nearly Vegan Lasagne

 This would be quite vegan if you didn't put cheese on it, or if you substituted a vegan "cheese" for the real stuff.

Sauce the first (mock bechamel)

1 large leek, green parts removed

1/2 medium cauliflower

Chunk butternut squash

3/4 cup unsalted cashew nuts

Sprig of rosemary (if you have some)

Salt, pepper and dry mustard powder.

Enough water to come up to the minimum level in your soup maker, if you have one, or just to cover.

Chop the leek, peel and chop the butternut, render the cauliflower into florets

If you have a soup maker, put everything in there and cook on pureed soup.  If you don't, put it all in a saucepan and simmer for about 20 minutes, until soft.  Blend until smooth.

Sauce the second (mock ragu)

1 onion

2 cloves garlic

1/2 punnet mushrooms

2 slices bread

About 1/3-1/2 cup walnuts

1 tin chopped tomatoes

Salt, pepper, herbs, mushroom ketchup

Peel and chop the onion, peel and crush the garlic.  Put them into a saucepan with a little cooking oil and allow to sweat for several minutes.  Add the chopped mushrooms and cook until their juices run. 

 

Meanwhile, use a food processor (or mini food processor, which is what I used) to turn the bread and walnut into crumbs.

Put the breadcrumb mix into the vegetable mix and add the tin of tomatoes.  Season to taste.

To assemble:

6-8 sheets lasagne

1/2 packet grated cheese (if using)

Layer the mock ragu, pasta sheets and mock bechamel in a lasagne dish in that order, finishing with a layer of mock bechamel.

  If you are using cheese, pile it on the top. 

Bake in a moderate oven for about 30-45 minutes.

Fish'n'rice

 I expect there are almost as many variations on fish and rice as there are on chicken and rice.  My current favourite is called Samak Meshweh, from a local Lebanese restaurant, which we have had delivered several times during lockdown - it's basically sea bass, marinated in lemon and garlic, served on a bed of rice with garlic sauce.  Very yummy.  But one can't always eat takeaway, nor, indeed, sea bass (not at £4 for 2 tiny fillets, you can't), and I love things-in-rice, so this was an Interesting Dish of my Own Invention. 

2 frozen haddock fillets (or cod, or any other white fish that takes your fancy)

knob of butter, for frying

1 red onion

2 cloves garlic

1/2 red pepper

1/2 cauliflower

1/2 punnet mushrooms

4-5 sun-dried tomatoes

1/2 cup rice

1 1/4 cups boiling water with seasoning added (see method)

1 tbs cream cheese - optional.  I used a new Philly with smoked salmon that was on special offer in Tesco.

Peel and chop the onion, peel and crush the garlic, chop the pepper, cauliflower, mushrooms and tomatoes.  Put in a heavy-bottomed casserole with a little cooking oil, and sauté for a few minutes.  Now add the rice and stir thoroughly, then add the water, which you have seasoned with - well,  your choice of seasoning.  1 used 1 tsp of a lemon/garlic/herb mix I just bought from Tesco, 1 tsp sumac, 1/2 tsp  all-purpose seasoning (Dunn's river) and 2 teaspoons of "fumet de poisson", which is a French fish stock powder, although it sounds as though it's fish manure... Also sea salt with oregano and sorrel, and black pepper. 

But use what you fancy - chicken or vegetable stock would probably work if you have no fish stock.  Bring back to the boil, stir thoroughly, cover and allow to simmer for 15-20 minutes.  

Just before the rice finishes cooking, fry the fish fillets in the butter on both sides for about 5 minutes - they'll take a bit longer if they are frozen, but not much.  If you are using cream cheese, stir it through the rice, and then serve with the fish on the top.

Vegan (well, almost) pasta bake

I had long been wanting to try the pasta sauce you make from cashew nuts, and, as I had bought a cauliflower, I thought I would make a cauliflower cheese using it.  Only things got a bit away from me, as they are apt to do.  And I didn't measure anything much, except to make sure it reached the "minimum" level of my soup maker.  If you don't have a soup maker, simmer everything on top of the stove for 15-20 minutes and then blend it.

Handful unsalted cashew nuts (I started by soaking 1/3 cup of them in boiling water, but then decided to add some more at the last minute, so probably 1/2-3/4 cup)
The outside leaves of a cauliflower, roughly chopped
A large-ish chunk of butternut squash, peeled and chopped
An onion, peeled and quartered, and a peeled clove of garlic
Seasoning:| salt, pepper, mustard, rosemary (I have some fresh rosemary at the moment!)
Enough water to make sure it reaches the minimum level of your soup maker.

Your choice of pasta in the amount you like.

Put everything except the pasta into the soup maker (or saucepan) and cook on "pureed soup".  Cook the pasta separately.  I found I had far too much sauce for the amount of pasta, so have saved some to live to fight another day, perhaps with a jacket potato and hard-boiled egg.  

I sprinkled Parmesan cheese on top, which rendered it vegetarian (arguably not that if you don't consider Parmesan vegetarian) rather than vegan, but you don't have to.  Bake in a moderately hot oven for about 30 minutes.  It was delicious!

Not quite a Buddha bowl

This is an adaptation of a meal I used to make some years ago.  Had it been cold, with perhaps some asparagus or avocado added, I could have put it in a bowl and called it a Buddha bowl.  As it is.... not quite! Serves 2

1/2 cup dried chickpeas (125 ml by volume)

1/2 cup quinoa (125 ml by volume)

1/2 head broccoli

1 tomato

1 clove garlic

1 tbs tahini

2 tbs lemon juice

1 tbs olive oil

Hot water as needed (see recipe).

Soak the chickpeas in boiling water to which you have added a little bicarbonate of soda (or not, you don't have to add this).  Cook for 18 minutes in a pressure cooker or Instant Pot, or for 45 minutes or so (depends on how fresh they are) on the stovetop.  I cooked them with a vegetable stock cube, but as you wish.

Put the quinoa in a saucepan with some salt and 250 ml boiling water.  Bring back to the boil, then turn down the heat and allow to simmer for 10 minutes.  Turn off the heat and allow to sit, covered, for a further 10 minutes while the water  is absorbed.

Cut the broccoli into florets; peel the thick stalk and cut into slices.  Steam until cooked.

Slice the tomato.

For the dressing, crush the garlic and put it, the tahini, lemon juice and olive oil into a dressing shaker (or, perhaps better, a mini food-processor), and thin down if necessary with hot water.

Pile everything on a plate and pour the dressing over.  Delicious!

Stuffed pancakes

This is an awful faff to make, but worth it once in awhile.  Serves 4.

For the pancakes:
110 g buckwheat flour (or gram flour, or even plain wheat flour)
1 egg
250 ml milk
Seasoning

For the stuffing:
1 tbs oil
1 onion
1 clove garlic
1/2 punnet mushrooms
2 large tomatoes
1 slice bread
30 g (approx) walnuts
Seasoning

For the béchamel sauce:
25 g butter
250 ml milk
2 heaped tsp flour
2 large handfuls grated cheese
Seasoning

First make the pancake batter by whisking together the egg, flour and milk, seasoning as liked.  Leave to stand while you make the stuffing: peel and chop the vegetables (probably no need to peel the mushrooms), cook in the oil until soft and juices run; whizz bread and nuts in a food processor until smooth, and then mix into the rest of the stuffing.

Make your pancakes in the usual way - this amount makes about 4 large ones.  It's probably easiest to layer them up with stuffing in between, but I tried to be clever and roll them round the stuffing:

 Melt the butter in a clean saucepan, and whisk together the flour, milk and seasonings.  Pour this on to the melted butter and bring to the boil, stirring all the time.  Remove from the heat and stir in half the cheese.  Pour this mix over the pancakes, and then top with the rest of the grated cheese.

You can easily make this vegan; the stuffing already is.  For the pancakes, use water or beer instead of milk, and a tablespoon of olive oil or tahini instead of the egg.  For the sauce, use a tin of tomatoes instead of the milk, and season more vigorously to make up for the lack of cheese. 

Mushroom, bean and barley slow cooker casserole

I wanted a casserole I could leave in the slow cooker until I got home after grandmother duty yesterday, and this was it!  You could, of course, substitute a tin of cannellini beans for the dried ones I used, but I prefer the texture when made from scratch.

1/2 cup dried cannelini beans
1/2 cup pearl barley
1 tbs cooking oil
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
2 carrots
1/2 large sweet pepper
2/3 large punnet mushrooms
1 tin tomatoes
About 200 ml red wine
Seasoning to taste
1 large tbs mascarpone (optional - thicken with cornflour if preferred/vegan).

Soak the beans in boiling water to which you have added a little bicarbonate of soda for at least an hour.  Then drain and rinse, and transfer to a saucepan.  Cover with fresh water, bring to the boil, and allow to cook hard for 10 minutes.  Drain again, and transfer to the slow cooker, together with the barley.

Now in the saucepan in which you cooked the beans (to save washing up), add a sloosh of vegetable oil, then sweat the chopped carrots, onion, garlic and pepper for a few minutes.  Add this to the slow cooker, then put the chopped (not too small - I break them into quarters, and then chop the stalks separately) mushrooms into the saucepan and sweat until the juices run.  Put these in the slow cooker, along with the rest of the ingredients except the mascarpone, and cook on auto until supper time - at least 5 hours, I reckon; mine had about 8.  Then stir in the mascarpone, if using, and serve, ideally with a green vegetable.

It is lush, but not very photogenic.....

Bean burgers

I don't care for fake meat, being perfectly happy to eat the real thing, but bean burgers are a good thing in their own right. And these were so easy and quick to make - and the Swan Whisperer said "Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous!"

About 1/2-3/4 cup dried beans, soaked for at least one hour in boiling water and then cooked for 15 minutes in a pressure cooker. Or a 400g tin, drained and rinsed. You can use any sort of beans - kidney, cannelloni, borlotti, pinto, black-eye... I used kidney beans.

1 slice wholemeal bread

Handful walnuts (30g?)

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 chilli pepper, seeds removed 

1/2 packet fresh parsley

2 small or 1 large carrots, grated

1 tbs cooking oil

Seasoning

Put everything except the beans and carrots into a food processor and blitz until smooth. Now add the beans and pulse several times, but not too much - you want them to be recognisably beans!

Transfer to a mixing bowl and add the grated carrots and seasoning, then use your hands to mix everything very thoroughly until it begins to come together. Form into patties, and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. Sprinkle with flour (I used gram flour) and then fry for several minutes on each side. Or bake....

I served this in a bun with avocado and a portobello mushroom with cheese, garnished with sweet chilli sauce, with coleslaw and home-made tzatziki on the side.

And no, I couldn't eat it all, but the Swan Whisperer ate that which I could not! 

Cabbage Casserole

I was really surprised not to find a version of this elsewhere on the blog, as I've been making it on and off since the 1970s, in both a vegetarian and meat version.  It is cheap and easy, and very definitely a one-pot meal.  I'm not giving exact amounts,  because you can adjust them to suit the number of people you're feeding.

Cabbage - the solid kinds work better than the very leafy kinds (white or red, or that extremely nice pointed one), chopped.
Potatoes, peeled and cut in half lengthwise
1 tbs olive oil
1 tbs plain flour
1-2 tbs wine vinegar
1 tbs brown sugar (demerara is best, but any brown will do).
Salt and pepper.
Then your choice of:
Belly pork, diced OR
Lean pork, diced OR
Chicken pieces, diced OR
Roasted nuts (peanuts or cashew) OR
I expect tofu would work, too, if you like it.

Use either the kind of casserole that will go both on top of the stove and in the oven OR a pressure cooker (Instant Pot is best).  In either case, put the oil in the pan, and if you are using meat or tofu, seal them in the hot oil.  You can also cook a teaspoonful of mustard seeds and/or cumin or caraway seeds in the oil.  Now add the cabbage and stir thoroughly until it is coated, and then stir in the flour, vinegar and sugar.  Season to taste. 

If you are using a pressure cooker, add 1/4 cup water at this stage, and if you're using peanuts or cashew nuts, now is the time to add them and stir in.  Flatten off the dish and place the potatoes, flat side down, on the top.  If this is going in the oven, brush the potatoes with a little oil, and bake in a moderate oven for about 90 minutes.  Otherwise, cook in the pressure cooker for 20 minutes at high pressure.  The oven version gives wonderful roast potatoes on the top, but the quick version is equally delicious.

Grain-stuffed marrow

½ large marrow
1 onion
1 clove garlic
½ punnet mushrooms (about 8)
1 tub or tin chopped tomatoes with chilli
1 packet microwaveable mixed grains (I used Middle Eastern)

Peel and chop the onion; peel and crush the garlic.  Add both of these to a saucepan with a little cooking oil, and allow to cook for a few minutes.  While this is happening, cut your marrow into 4 equal slices, then peel each slice and remove the seeds.  Place the rings thus obtained on a baking dish.

Now chop the mushrooms (you can peel them if you wish, but unless they are beginning to be old, life's too short) and add them to the onion mixture, and allow to cook until they are just rendering their juice.  Stir in the tomatoes and the grains, until the grains are separated and the whole lot is heated through.

  Now pile into the mushroom rings, and bake in a moderately hot oven for about 45 minutes.

Midweek mushroom pasta

Yet again I failed to take a photograph....  Very quick, very easy, very delicious.

Vegetarian.  Serves 2

100 g (approx) fettucine or tagliatelle (I never know the difference)
200 g mushrooms, broken into pieces (or sliced)
2 large cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1/2 packet parsley, finely chopped (I used a mini food processor)
1/2 tub mascarpone
Knob of butter
Salt, pepper, 1 tsp mushroom ketchup
Sprinkle of grated cheese

Put the pasta on to cook according to the instructions on the packet.  Melt the butter in a large frying pan and add the mushrooms.  Cook until they render their liquid, then add the crushed garlic and continue to cook over a low heat for about 5 minutes.  Now add the mascarpone and the cooked, drained pasta, and stir thoroughly until everything is well mixed.  Serve at once, perhaps with a sprinkle of grated cheese (I used Emmenthal, but Parmesan would be nice, too). 

Egg curry

The last time I made egg curry, until tonight, was in September 1989 - that evening, we had some very bad news which was so shocking and unexpected that it made me feel sick, so I didn't fancy egg curry for many months and then forgot about it! But it is a useful addition to the repertoire. The sauce is vegan, and can be used on almost anything, doesn't have to be eggs - chicken or fish, if you eat those (although I think I have a nicer fish curry recipe), big chunks of vegetables (cauliflower, etc)1, even tofu or quorn if you eat those.  Sorry there are no photos - it got eaten!

2 tbs oil (I used Tesco stir-fry)
1 large tbs curry powder
1 cube frozen ginger and garlic (or a bit of ginger root and a couple of cloves of garlic)
1 onion, peeled and chopped
1 apple, cored and chopped
1 plantain (or banana), peeled and sliced
1 chilli pepper, chopped (remove seeds)
1 tin chopped tomatoes (I used tomatoes with chilli, which worked beautifully)
1/2 tin water
 Salt, pepper, soya sauce, mushroom ketchup, chilli sherry, etc.
2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled

Put the oil, ginger/garlic and curry powder (either a proprietary blend or mix your own) into a saucepan and cook on a gentle heat for several minutes.  Add the onion, chilli, plantain and apple, and cook, stirring all the time, for a couple more minutes.  Add the tomatoes, water, and seasoning, bring to the boil, and simmer for 15 minutes while you cook some rice.  I then like to blend the sauce with a stick blender to thicken it up - you don't want it totally smooth, just nice  and thick.  Put cooked rice on the plate, add a hard-boiled egg (or 2!) and pour the sauce over.  Top with a bit of chutney, if liked.

Very quick lentil curry

Serves 2-4

1/2 punnet mushrooms
1/2 courgette
Any other vegetables you may have that using - spinach is great, and can just be folded in at the end.,
1 tin tomatoes with onion and garlic (or plain, and add the onion and garlic separately)
1/2 cup red lentils
1/2 cup basmati rice
1 1/2 cups vegetable stock (from a cube is fine)
2 tbs sultanas or currants (or a mixture)
Curry powder and other spices as liked (I used asafoetida, to make up for the lack of onion and garlic)
1 tbs cooking oil

Cook the spices in the oil over a low heat until fragrant.  Add the vegetables, stir to coat, and let cook for a minute or two.  Or not, if you can't be bothered!  Add the rest of the ingredients, cover and simmer for 18 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Serve at once, perhaps with chutney.

Vegetarian Lasagne

Please note that the not-bolognese sauce was adapted from a Rose Elliott recipe in Not just a load of old lentils.

6-8 lasagne sheets, as needed
Grated parmesan cheese (or vegan substitute), to taste

A little cooking oil
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1/2 punnet mushrooms 
1 small tub (I think 50g) walnuts
2 slices bread
1 packet passata
Salt, pepper, mixed herbs, mushroom ketchup

300 ml milk (or vegan substitute)
About 20g butter or cooking oil
1 heaped tsp plain flour
Salt, pepper, mustard powder
Grated Emmenthal, Cheddar, or vegan substitute to taste

Peel and chop the onion; peel and crush the garlic.  Put into a saucepan with the oil and allow to cook for a few minutes while you chop the mushrooms.  Add these, and continue cooking.  Meanwhile blitz the bread and walnuts in a food processor.  When the mushrooms are more-or-less cooked, turn off the heat, add the bread/walnut crumbs, the passata and seasonings to the mix and stir well.  Leave to soak for a bit while you make the bechamel sauce.  I added a spoonful of sunflower seeds to this, just because they were sitting there, looking at me!

For the Bechamel sauce, put the milk, flour and seasonings into a jug and whisk very thoroughly while the butter melts in another saucepan (or the oil heats up); pour this on to the melted fat, and continue to cook, stirring all the time, until it thickens and the mixture boils.  Turn off the heat and add the Emmenthal cheese.  Stir well.

To assemble: Make layers of not-Bolognese, lasagne sheets and Bechamel in a lasagne dish, finishing with Bechamel sauce, and top the lot with grated Parmesan or similar. 

Place on a baking tray in the centre of an oven which you have heated to 200° C (180° fan), Mark 6, and allow to cook for about 30 minutes. 

Bärlauchsuppe (Ramsons soup)

Mum and I went to a farm shop yesterday, and I bought a huge bag of ramsons.  About 250g, I think, but it's like spinach - huge leaves that weigh very little.

125 g (roughly) of ramsons (wild garlic), either bought or foraged
1 onion
1 clove smoked garlic (or ordinary, or omit)
4-5 potatoes
1 litre vegetable stock (a cube is fine!)
1 tbs creme fraiche (optional)

Peel and chop the onion and potato, crush the garlic, put it all in the soup maker with the stock.  Cook on "pureed soup".  When it bleeps, add the roughly-chopped ramsons, and blend until it is smooth.  Add the cream, if using, and check the seasoning. 

If you don't have a soup maker, sweat the veg in a little oil, then add the stock and cook until the potatoes are done, blend it, add the ramsons, and blend again.  Finish as above.

Asparagus risotto

This is the second of my favourite main-course ways of eating asparagus.

1 tbs olive oil
1 onion, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 cup (125 ml by volume) risotto rice
250 ml cooking white wine
500 ml stock (chicken, if you're not vegetarian, or vegetable if you are; cube is fine, although fresh always nicer)
About 25g butter
A nice amount of Parmesan cheese, grated
1 tray asparagus + any tough stalk ends you saved from previous recipe

Cut the tough stalks of the asparagus, and put them into a saucepan with the stock; bring to the boil and simmer while the rest of this is happening. 

Put the olive oil, onion and garlic into a pan and cook gently until transparent.  Now add the rice and stir well, and then add the wine.  Bring back to the boil and simmer for 5-8 minutes until it is all absorbed, stirring frequently.  Now add half the stock and continue.  Meanwhile, cook the asparagus - steaming is easiest, but however you prefer.

When the stock has been absorbed, add the rest of it.  Put the now-cooked stems into a food processor and blitz with a little water (or retained stock) until you have a very smooth puree.

  Now continue cooking the rice until all the stock has been absorbed, and then add the asparagus puree, the butter and the cheese, and beat vigorously until all is smooth and gloopy and delicious.

Serve topped with the steamed asparagus.

Serves 2

Asparagus with pasta and pine nuts

The asparagus season is finally here!  Actually, strictly speaking it starts next week, on 23 April, but British asparagus is already beginning to be found in the supermarkets, and I treated us to two trays thereof (only 6-7 spears in each tray, and they were expensive, but worth it).   1Some people just want to eat it as a starter, steamed with Hollandaise sauce, and why not?  Very delicious.  But sometimes you want it as a main meal, and this post and the next are two of my favourite ways of having it.

1 tray British (or local to you) asparagus
40-50 g pine nuts (Lidl sells them in 40g sachets, which is what I used)
100-120 g pasta of your choice
About 50g butter
About - well- a nice amount of Parmesan cheese, grated.

Put the pasta on to cook, and while this is happening, fry the pine nuts in half the butter, stirring all the time, until everything is nicely browned.

Then you can add the rest of the butter and fry the asparagus in the same pan, turning it frequently.  Or, if you prefer, you can steam it - up to you.  I fried ours yesterday, and it was lush.  NB, if you cut off the tough ends of the asparagus, save them for the next recipe!

Mix the pine nuts, cheese and drained pasta together, and top with the cooked asparagus.  Yummy.

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Serves 2.

Stewed squid

The thing about squid is that either you need to just barely show it the stove, as in a stir-fry or battered squid rings, or else you need to stew it thoroughly.  Anything in between and you have india-rubber!

This was a concatenation of several recipes, but I used too much liquid and it came out more like soup than stew - none the worse for that, I may say.  I thought the beans would absorb more than they did.

About 250 g squid - whole, if possible, but rings is fine if that's what you have.
1 large onion
2 carrots
1 leek
1 chili pepper (optional)
1/2 courgette (this would have been a whole one, but I found a half in the fridge that wanted using)
Several small potatoes
1 sloosh tomato paste
1 tin tomatoes or passata
200 ml cooking wine (I used white, as there was some open)
1/2 cup dried pinto beans, soaked overnight
A little cooking oil
Stock cube and other seasoning, as liked.

Peel and chop the vegetables - I didn't peel the potatoes, but did slice them - and do feel free to substitute any or all of them.  Many recipes include celery, but we are not fans of cooked celery, so I tend to substitute leek.  I did think of using a "casserole mix" as Lidl sells pre-prepared vegetables you can use in a casserole, and which make very good soup, too, but had too many vegetables in the fridge to justify doing that.

Sweat the vegetables in the cooking oil,

then add the rest of the ingredients.

I then added 500 ml water, which turned out to be far too much as I was using my Instant Pot for this.  I think probably 200 ml would have been ample, maybe even less, but I hadn't pre-cooked the beans (if I had, I probably wouldn't have added any extra water).  Then cook on high pressure for 20 minutes, or, if you are not using a pressure cooker, simmer for about an hour. 

Braised lamb heart

This was really rather good! No photos, I'm afraid.
 1 packet lamb hearts (Tesco sells packs of 2)
1 tbs plain flour
1/2 cup flageolets
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
2 large tomatoes
1/2 punnet mushrooms
1 chili pepper
1/2 red sweet pepper
1/2 packet "soup mix" vegetables - a mixture of chopped leeks, swede and carrot sold by my local Lidl
1/2 cup pearl barley
1 tbs mint jelly
about 250 ml water
Salt and pepper

Cook the flageolet beans (use any beans you like, but I do like flageolets) - I just put them in the Instant Pot with a bit of bicarbonate of soda, and cooked for 20 minutes, letting them cool naturally. You could use a tin of beans that you have drained and rinsed instead.

Peel and chop all the vegetables, then fry in a little oil until beginning to be soft. Transfer to slow cooker.  Cut the hearts in half and slice them, removing any tuby bits. Fry these in the same pan you have just cooked the vegetables in, adding a little more oil if necessary, and sprinkling them with the flour. Stir vigorously. Then transfer this to the slow cooker, plus the barley.

Deglaze the pan with the mint jelly and water, and season with salt and pepper and any other seasoning you like. Pour this into the slow cooker, stir well, and then cook on auto for about 7-8 hours.

Microwave lemon curd

I find this quicker and easier than the way I used to make it, on the stovetop.  Citrus fruit is in season at this time of year - look out for the Sevilles for your marmalade - so it's a perfect time to make lemon curd and bring a bit of sunshine into dull January!

4 medium unwaxed lemons
450 g sugar
4 eggs
120 g butter

Sterilise a couple of jamjars by washing them in hot water, rinsing, and then putting them into the oven (on low) for at least 10 minutes - do this before you start the rest of the preparation.  This has the great advantage that you then have a large bowlful of clean washing-up water that you can use to wash up as you go along!

I find the easiest way of doing things is to put everything except the butter into a food processor - quite apart from anything else, you can put the lemon zest in in strips and don't have to use a microplane grater, which is boring!  So lemon zest, juice, sugar and eggs go in the food processor and you whizz this while melting the butter in a large microwave-proof bowl.

Then you mix the two together, stir really thoroughly and microwave for about a minute at a time until it begins to thicken, at which time reduce the time to 30 seconds at a time.  Stir vigorously between each bout of microwaving.  When it is thick and delicious, pot it up and enjoy!

It should be kept in the fridge, so I don't bother with cellophane and/or waxed paper, but you can if you prefer.

Rice, beans and mushrooms

Once again, I am inspired by Amuse Your Bouche.  I don't really like cilantro, though, and (at the time I planned this dish) had half a punnet of mushrooms that wanted eaten.  As it turned out, I didn't make this when I first thought of doing so (long story) so make the mushrooms into soup, and bought fresh for this dish.  It was very good, but I wish I'd cooked the beans a little longer!

1/2 cup uncooked black beans
1/2 cup uncooked rice
1/2 punnet mushrooms
3 cloves garlic
1/2 packet cream cheese (I used garlic-and-herb flavoured, but sweet chilli might also have been nice)
A little cooking oil and butter
1 tsp pilau seasoning (or as liked)
2 tsp mushroom ketchup
1 vegetable stock cube

Soak the beans overnight, and then cook in water to which you have added a stock cube in a pressure cooker or Instant Pot - I cooked mine for 10 minutes and they just weren't quite cooked, so maybe 12-15 minutes would be better.

Put a little cooking oil or butter in a saucepan, heat it, then add the pilau seasoning and the rice.  Stir, then add 1 cup salted boiling water.  Stir again, then reduce the heat as low as it will go and leave the rice, covered, to cook undisturbed for 15 minutes.

  Meanwhile, melt the butter in another saucepan and add the crushed garlic, the mushrooms that you have cut or broken into small pieces and the ketchup.  Allow to cook on a low heat. 

When the rice is cooked, stir the cream cheese into the mushrooms, and bring back to the boil; then add the cooked rice and the beans to the same pan.  Serve at once.  Serves 2.